Handling the waste
To support the circular economy, please:
think before you print – minimise the disposable goods, design the functional objects, reduce the waste
reuse the printed object – it has great properties, it can be cleaned in the dishwasher, and it resists to water
recycle the material – you can send it to Fillamentum, and we will exploit the polymer
or dispose the material into biowaste – if the recycling is not effective, put NonOilen® into biowaste
do not put it into plastic waste, it would not be separated correctly, but incinerated
recycle the spool – it is made of recycled PP, which has specific grey colour to be easily recognised on the sorting line and ensures good separation in the waste
recycle the bag – it is plastic foil coated with aluminium, which can be thrown away into the plastic waste
recycle the box – it is made of the recycled paper and it can be recycled again
Handling the waste
If your object has ended its lifetime, you can put it into biowaste, into the home electrical composter for food waste, or the best way is to send it back to Fillamentum, in cooperation with the NonOilen’s producer, this material will be recycled, it can be used several more times! Moreover, to balance carbon footprint, every package with NonOilen sent by DHL is included in the GoGREEN program.
In industrial compost or electric composter, this material has about 3x faster degradation than standard PLA. The preconditions to be biodegraded are that temperature inside reaches at least 55 °C to loosen the polymer chains. Only then it can be attacked by the microorganisms that can start devouring the polymer. The contained polyhydroxy butyrate (PHB) in NonOilen® acts as an initiator for degradation. As the bacteria can polymerize it, they can also start metabolizing it fast. This causes that also the rest of the chains is more available for the bacteria to be decomposed. And the content of PHB has a key role to fasten the degradation of NonOilen® in comparison with PLA.
Unfortunately, many of the companies that process the waste, are not ready for the compostable bioplastics. Few problems are:
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that the compostable bioplastics should not be placed in the plastic waste, but into compost or biowaste. Otherwise it contaminates the plastic waste.
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On the sorting line, the bioplastics are not recognized from the oil-based plastics. They are usually landfilled.
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Bioplastics (for example used for packaging) may be contaminated with the food, but these cannot be accepted into the compost due to standards.
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Companies consider that these bioplastics do not decompose anyway, because they are not aware of innovation in this issue.
Therefore, the best way to handle the waste is recycling, which can be arranged by company Fillamentum in cooperation with NonOilen’s producer. Send us the pieces of unused filament, unsuccessfully printed objects, broken objects, etc. We will forward them. If the properties of the material are not suitable for recycling anymore, never mind. It may be effectively composted.
Eventually, it is possible to join our project and research new possibilities. If you prefer to compost the material at your place, please keep in mind that the design, thickness, compost composition, and its efficiency influence the conditions of NonOilen’s disintegration. It is better to break the object into small pieces that will be attacked easier than the bulk objects. The decomposition of a larger or thicker object may take longer. But in the end, after some time, nothing remains. You can contact us and send us some pictures or information about your own results.
These are the ways how to handle the waste so far, as the project is still in the development. In the future, we want to provide more options and offer a concept of the closed loop of the material flow to save the environment.
